


looming incubus

by MusicalDefiance



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Attempted Murder, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Murder, Nightmare Fuel, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Spoilers, happy halloween???, i guess lmao, no actual death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 13:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16476233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalDefiance/pseuds/MusicalDefiance
Summary: Akira's the one who has nightmares, not Ryuji.This one was pretty bad though...





	looming incubus

**Author's Note:**

> I found this WIP sitting dusty in my docs and got encouraged to finish it. Not really meant for Halloween but I guess it works! Enjoy lol.

Ryuji feels a shift to his right, enough of a jostle to bring him out of the peaceful slumber he’d become well acquainted with in the past few hours. His eyebrows furrow, mouth forming a scowl and eyes pinching tighter together as an agitated whine sounds from his throat.

It’s not very often that he gets woken up in the middle of the night, but whatever little stir Akira just made has really shaken the bed up for whatever reason.

He groans, eyelids barely allowing his pupils to see though the smallest of slits. The room is still dark as expected, the only colors he’s able to see being the blacks of darkness and the blues that come from the glow of the city lights just outside the window near the bed. He’s facing away from Akira and the window though, catching a glimpse of the digital alarm clock illuminated next to his face and very clearly reading the time— 3:47.

It’s way too effin’ early for him to be up.

He turns his body, rummaging around with the mass of their comforter and pillows as his unawakened limbs fight with what little energy he gains from his newly awakened state to make the effort at all. His eyelids are still so heavy, so the light of the night sky and Tokyo’s skyscrapers shining through the window are enough to nearly blind him. He squints, trying his best to eye the mop of black hair that’s usually laying next to him, seeing if can get a grasp on what’s got him all jerky.

“Hey…” he says somewhat raspily. “Hey, you okay, dude?”

Akira says nothing in return, doesn’t even make a sound— still asleep probably. He frowns right before a yawn escapes his mouth.

“Hey,” he tries again, voice more aggravated and hand pushing what he’s pretty sure is Akira’s arm. “You woke me up, jerk. That’s not cool. I got work tomorrow, man…” he complains, another yawn fighting to escape his lips. “Something up...? You havin’ a nightmare…?”

That wouldn’t be completely out of the ordinary. Akira’s had them before, regularly, but Ryuji can usually tell when something like that’s going on. Akira doesn’t have nightmares like normal people do, no quiet whimpers or scrunched faces no one can see or hear in the dead of night. No, Akira is  _ vocal _ . He shoots upright and yells and fights back ferociously at whatever’s attacking him, regardless of its there or not, and falls to the ground like a shattering glass goblet, spilling onto the floor in dangerous shards that leave Ryuji scared to pick up the pieces.

Tonight there’s none of that. No crying, no screams, no harsh breathing that makes Ryuji wonder if he’s able to actually breathe at all. In fact, he can’t hear anything. The night is just as peaceful as any other.

He moves his hand over, his vision becoming at least somewhat more clear as he reaches up to Akira’s face, intent on poking his cheekbones or lightly slapping his temples to get his attention, just to see if he’s alright. But as his fingers make contact, he notices something.

Akira’s head feels… wet.

He raises an eyebrow, senses not totally adjusted to the foreign feeling as he skims his forehead lightly with his fingertips, and he still can’t see very well anyways with the way his eyes are still adjusting. It feels like he’s all sweaty, as though he’s managed to catch a pretty ferocious fever through the span of the night. That would certainly explain why he’d moved, it was probably just him coughing.

Ryuji sighs, “Why do you never tell me when you’re sick, idiot?” he says to himself.

Finding at least a small but still reasonably agitated worry for his boyfriend, Ryuji brings his arm up to his face to wipe at his eyes, intent on rubbing them awake and trying to see if he can go find him a wet rag and a thermometer from the bathroom. If he’s really that hot, he almost definitely has a fever and needs to be cooled down before things get worse, he thinks. He’s not the best doctor ever, but this late at night he’s probably about the best care Akira’s going to get, and his mom’s taught him at least  _ a couple  _ things. Cool ‘em down, make sure he has liquids, yada yada. Shouldn’t be anything too hard, or anything he hasn’t done before.

Besides, he definitely doesn’t need Akira covering the rest of the bedding in his sweat,  _ nasty _ .

It’s not till he brings his arm up to his face that the smell hits him. The smell of something rotten and metallic that clings offensively to the inside of his nose.

The smell of… blood.

Ryuji rubs his arm against his eyes desperately as soon as the smell wraps around him and assaults his senses, pulling it back and having to blink a few times to focus his gaze before he’s finally able to see the cause of the red, copper smelling liquid covering his fingers. He gasps, vision warping as he feels his heart shoot up into his throat and thrum through his entire body with a force he hasn’t felt since entering the Metaverse for the last time.

Akira’s head is covered in blood, a particularly reddened and dark spot sitting in a near perfect circle right in the center of his forehead.

He would have screamed if he hadn’t heard the laugh first. One so pleasantly slick that it chills him right through his bones.

“All this time and you’re still acting so selfish, Sakamoto-kun?” a threatening voice follows. “I had always assumed that it was Akira that brought that out of you, that all you cared about in life was to make sure that he got to stay by your side. But I suppose even  _ he _ isn’t immune to your behaviors, is he?”

Ryuji freezes still, heart racing and breath shallowing to near nothing as the voice blankets over every one of his senses. He recognizes it. He recognizes it and he’s so afraid to look up and see it staring him in the face. But he knows.

He knows  _ exactly _ who’s in the room with him.

The voice laughs again, “What now, are you upset about that?” It asks, clearly referring to the scene in front of him which he’s still not able to rip his vision from. Blood continues to drip down Akira’s face as his skin slowly turns whiter and whiter. It’s jarring with the serene and peaceful look on his face, the juxtaposition alone making him want to wretch.

“I guess maybe you should have done more to protect him if you really never wanted this to happen. It was inevitable as far as I could see it, so easy to make my way through. You really should have invested in better locks.”

He gulps, cold sweat forming all around his skin. His fists are tightening, so much of him wanting to rip himself up and deck the shadowy figure near him so badly it’ll leave them spinning, but he  _ can’t _ . He can’t move or do anything but stare at  _ Akira _ .

Stare at his entire world, bleeding out,  _ dead _ in front of him.

Another chuckle, the sound of it so frighteningly light and airy, though a sick aura flows all throughout it.

“It doesn’t seem that there’s much more trickery to be had with this though. The Metaverse no longer exists.”

He hears the click of a gun.

“Justice has  _ won _ this time.”

Out of instinct his head moves towards the noise, the act of doing it so difficult and painful that he feels like his neck’s joints have become rusted from years of wear and tear in the span of a few seconds. His eyes are strained and blurred, pupils barely able to take focus on anything as every heartbeat seems to take him even further and further from reality. His eyes work to betray him and meet exactly what he doesn’t want to see, and the first glimpse they catch is the shine of the bright blue numbers from his alarm clock against the smooth metal of a pistol in a black gloved hand.

Merely two feet behind it is Goro Akechi’s menacing smile.

His body lets out a choked cough, a desperate gasp for air following as though he’d been forced not to breathe. His heartbeat is all he can hear now, body so frozen in fear that he can’t move despite every part of his brain screaming at him to escape,  _ to fight _ . Even with his vision blurred and senses dulled, there’s no mistaking the horrifyingly evil gleam that he can see in Akechi’s eyes.

He doesn’t know how, or what brings it out of him, but he whispers a pitiful “ _ Why. _ ”

Akechi smiles at him, and Ryuji’s heart completely stops.

“Rest well,  _ Skull _ .”

With a flash and the sound of a gunshot, Ryuji bolts up from the bed with a gasp. His breathing is ragged, his body completely drenched and warm with sweat that cascades all along his skin from his face to his legs. His eyes are going everywhere, frantically scanning the dark room through newfound moisture blocking his vision for any sign of the man that he was completely sure had just shot him in the face merely three seconds ago. There’s nobody else in the room though as far as he can tell. Nobody except…

“Ryuji, you okay…?” a tired voice suddenly asks. He can feel a body shifting next to him, moving to sit up and taking some of the covers he’s clutching so tightly with them. His eyes instantly shift and lock onto Akira, his hair messy and tousled while his eyes are lidded with bags under them.

No blood or gunshot wound to speak of.

Ryuji becomes the glass goblet.

He collapses onto him, clutching at any inch of the other boy he can grab, shoving his face into his shoulder and just crying, whimpering, _sobbing_. The only thoughts in his brain repeating his name, Akira _Akira_ ** _Akira_** , over and _over_ again to the point where it feels like insanity. Akira is startled back, sitting there bewildered and wide eyed while staring into a blonde bedhead before more fully regaining his mental clarity and wrapping his arms protectively around him.

“Whoa whoa whoa.” he says, shifting himself to sit more properly and tightening his grip around Ryuji’s shaking form. “Ryuji, holy shit, are you okay?”

Ryuji just gasps in desperate gulps of air against Akira’s skin, unable to speak as strangled sobs wrack through his entire body, ripping away any semblance of a clear voice he may have had. The strength of his hold on his boyfriend increases, grip shaky but strong, knuckles going completely white. As if he’s afraid he’ll slip out of his hands.

“Ryuji…” Akira repeats, voice tender and soft as his hands instinctively cascade across Ryuji’s back and neck. “Ryuji, babe, oh my god what’s  _ wrong? _ ” he presses, his satin voice enveloping him as he questions with whispers against his neck. Ryuji can’t answer though, and he can feel the vibrations of Akira’s discontented hums, pulling him close and tight while trying to still his shivers.

Ryuji embraces the warmth surrounding him and melds to it, much preferring it over the cold in the room they’re sitting in. Akira has a much harder time with these things, mind completely gone and grasping in some dark void when he’s in his fits, but Ryuji’s mental grasp is fortunately still just past the line before being lost forever. Slowly but surely his mind is releasing itself from the edges of his dream, allowing him begrudgingly to return to the real world with a chide and sneer and letting his focus shift to something much more desirable. Letting him be reassured that nothing he saw was real, but  _ this  _ is.

Akira’s okay, it was just a bad dream.

It does takes time, but Akira coaxes him back away from the edge he feels like he’s straddling. Soothing words and gentle fingers mixed with sweet kisses under his ear give him more control over himself, and as he comes to he can’t help but think of how ironic and stupid all of this is. It’s just a silly dream, even if it’s a bad one. Akira’s the one who has the nightmares, Akira’s the one who needs consoling on dark nights, not Ryuji. He’s supposed to be the one comforting him, being strong enough for him, making sure that  _ he’s  _ okay. He’s supposed to be protecting  _ him _ , not the other way around.

He somehow breathes easier when Akira’s back asleep. It takes a minute to convince him to do so, but he’s at least relatively sated when Ryuji can speak again and tells him he’s fine with words and grateful smooches against his jawline. He tacks on a laugh for good measure, poking fun at himself that he hasn’t had a dumb nightmare like that since he was a kid. Whether he’s fully convinced or not, Akira’s kissing his cheek and his messy hair hits the pillow only a moment after.

He never asks him what the dream was about. Ryuji’s just glad that he doesn't have to lie to him.

He hates the tension he can see lining Akira’s brow when he falls back and closes his eyes, and he leans down to kiss him on the lips just as he’s teetering on the edge of unconsciousness to take at east some of it away. He’s not about to be the reason Akira can’t sleep. Not tonight and not ever.

Before he lets himself fall back onto the bed alongside him, Ryuji moves off of it and stands, righting himself as his legs wobble from underneath him and moving out the door and towards the hallway with what feels like the weight of ten tons of lead holding him back and yet a thick coiled rope pulling him along the way. He keeps their bedroom door open, telling himself he’s doing it so he can see the light in the room to find his way back through their starkly dark apartment, but deep down there’s a piece that just wants to be able to hear Akira breathe.

He’s at his destination merely seconds later, and hesitantly,  _ shakily _ , he reaches for the metal doorknob sitting in front of him, barely glowing with what little light is forcing its way into their living room against the dimmed tones of everything around it. It’s cold against his hand, almost painfully so, and he grips it tightly as he inhales a breath, long and slow.

He jiggles it and pulls. It’s locked.

He lets out the belated exhale all at once, a sigh of relief, and pulls himself away to saunter back to the bedroom. He doesn’t close the door behind him when he enters the room, and sits on the bed with an exhausted plop, hands folding in front of him and settling between his legs. He looks at the alarm clock, caught off guard by the time of 3:47 echoing that of his dreams and sending a small chill down his spine. Surely it’s nothing, but it’s still definitely enough to make him uneasy.

He shakes his head and groans— this is all stupid. Akechi died years ago. That bastard can’t touch Akira, can’t even  _ dream  _ of it. Not anymore, not ever again.

He finds himself not listening to reason though as he glances around the bedroom again, and then at the door. Still no one but he and Akira reside inside, and he can still hear Akira breathing, gentle snores starting to combine with that soft inhale and exhale as he sleeps. Ryuji sighs again, moving his legs and shifting the covers over his now freezing feet, relishing in the immediate warmth his and Akira’s shared space covers him with as he pulls the comforter over him. The warmth he needs to remember that Akira’s there, and breathing, and  _ alive _ .

His eyes are heavy, but they don’t close. He faces away from Akira, one hand reaching beside him and holding Akira’s arm, while the other supports his own head, turned towards their bedroom door and just barely able to see the outline of the entrance to their apartment.

...he’ll be asking about changing the locks first thing tomorrow.

 

**Author's Note:**

> ~~Musical, do you have a thing for scary Akechi...?~~
> 
>  
> 
> [Feel free to yell at me on Tumblr](http://musicaldefiance.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/MusicalDefiance)


End file.
